Sunrise - Monday, May 15, 2011

The vibrant orange sun peeked up from the horizon, welcoming the town of Appleville to a new day and the possibilities of things to come. . .

“Possibilities of things to come” doesn’t work. Will thought to himself and stared harder at the sun as he dug deeper and scrunched his face in an effort to pull forward the words that alluded him.

The vibrant orange sun peeked up from the horizon, welcoming the town of Appleville to all that awaited them on what was sure to be a warm. . .more like humid. . .day. He nodded, liking his second draft better and turned his attention back to the breathtaking sunrise.

For as long as he could remember, he woke up early to catch the first rays of the sun. At his childhood home in Appaloosa Plains, he would trek up a hill on his grandparents’ ranch that had amazing views of the surrounding hills and river, watching as the rays of the warm yellow sun cast shimmers across the ripples on the grey blue water. He couldn’t count the number of hours he spent there, trying to find inspiration for his latest story, letting the enjoyment of solitude rejuvenate his soul, or trying to escape the heartbreaking scenes of his family struggling with his Dad’s death.

The scene before him was different but still offered what his childhood spot had; a place to recharge, let ideas find him, and think back on times with his family, especially his dad. Discovering the spot during his first week at Appaloosa State University was an accident. He woke up one morning, missing his walks back home, and decided to explore some of the hills on the outskirts of campus. A dirt path set amongst some trees caught his eye and he followed it until the trees cleared, revealing the view of the university below and an amazing place to be alone and watch sunrises. It became his new favorite spot and it was a rare morning that he didn’t make the trek up the hill.

The sound of his watch alarm seemed thunderous when it rang through the silence of the new dawn and jostled him out of his thoughts. He learned a long time ago that without something to alert him of time passing, he would lose track of it, and the repeated beep of the alarm exposed his habit of doing just that. And while he would normally stride purposely back down the hill to start another day on campus, that morning he took another moment and let his eyes sweep over every building, street, and tree. Hoping that when he closed his eyes sometime in the future, that he would be able to remember it just as well as he did his childhood spot.

He would’ve loved nothing more than to meander and soak up the memories of everything he heard and saw on his way back down the trail, but he had a flight to catch and felt like a slave to time. It wasn’t until he reached the front door of one of the many brownstones that lined his street that he paused again. This is it. He realized as he lifted the key to the lock. Many times he pondered what he would feel on that day, each moment being its last, and as the lock clicked he could only think of one word. Bittersweet.

“Hey! How was your walk?” The normal greeting and question traveled from the kitchen into the foyer right as Will closed the heavy wood door. Any other morning he wouldn’t have had to think about his answer, giving a short, one word description of his hike into the piney wilderness that enclosed the town. But that morning the question required more than a brief response.

“Good.” He paused and looked up from the silver key that he twirled in his fingers, watching Donovan enjoy his required morning cup of coffee as he thought about how he should continue. “It’s weird though, knowing that this is all coming to an end.” He admitted and Donovan nodded.

“I know. It feels. . .” His brows came together and he looked down at the floor “Well, weird.” He finally finished and attempted a smile as he looked back up.  “I keep asking myself; Are we really adults now?”

Will shook his head, not really knowing the answer himself, and pocketed his key as he moved into the kitchen to grab his own cup. “I guess, if graduating and getting places of our own is considered being an adult.”

With a nod, Donovan accepted his offered definition of when adulthood began and they settled one final time into what had become their normal morning routine of drinking coffee and reading the paper. It was something that Will knew many would consider an obsolete thing to do, reading about the news from printed sheets instead of looking it up on the phone or computer, but he could never bring himself to do it. He enjoyed the feeling of holding an actual book or newspaper and the crinkling sound that the pages made. And somewhere along the way he had made a believer out of Donovan.

The thunderous entrance of someone barging into the foyer and slamming the door used to make both him and Donovan jump, but long ago had become something they expected and Will smiled as he eagerly awaited the greeting that he knew would come. “Hey! Hey! Hey!” The loud, boisterous voice rang through the room.

“Hey, Trev.” Donovan greeted him and Will caught a welcoming wave out of the corner of his eye. “There’s coffee.”

“Yes!” Trev exclaimed like it was the greatest thing ever and walked over to poor himself a cup, continuing the auditory assault as he placed it a little too hard on the counter and made the spoon clang against the sides as he stirred in the sugar and cream.

It wasn’t the first time that Will wondered if there was anything that Trev could do without making a racket. But his gregarious personality was also one of the things that Will loved about his twin brother, and knowing that hearing it would be a rare occurrence after that morning made his stomach ache and a frown pull his lips downward. Something he tried to hide from Trev by bending his head even further over the newspaper as Trev walked over to the counter.

“So your plane leaves at one?” Trev asked and Will decided to play it safe by giving the briefest answer he could.

“Yeah.”

He knew the second he said it that he revealed too much and winced when he caught Trev motioning to Donovan with his head for him to go upstairs.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you?” Trev asked once the sound of the upstairs door closing traveled to the kitchen. “I can get a ticket and stay for a day or two. Help you unpack.” Will had to fight the urge to jump on the offer. He could count on one hand the number of times that he and Trev hadn’t been in the same town and the idea of the two of them permanently separating made both his heart and stomach sink.

“That’s just going to prolong the inevitable.” He whispered as he stood up and made his way over to the sink, both to rinse out his cup and to try to hide how distressed he was about facing the upcoming separation from his twin brother. It worked until he mustered up the courage to turn around and face Trev, witnessing the unguarded pain on his face that Will felt in his heart. It made his chest tighten a little and he found himself wondering again if he made the right decision to move so far away from everyone in his family.

But just like every other time that the doubt tried to change his mind, the memories made on their last family vacation overwhelmed him and the unexplainable pull to go back to the island renewed his determination.

“We can’t stay together forever.” He tried to joke and was relieved to see a small smirk appear on Trev’s lips.

“We could. Look at the Property Brothers.” The sound of both of them chuckling was quickly replaced with sighs.  They had prolonged their separation by Will choosing to go to the same college where Trev played football, but with Trev being drafted to by the Bridgeport Bucks and Will having no interest in living in a big city, he was forced to face the fact that after that day they would be apart.

 

“You think “twin sense” still works when separated by thousands of miles?” Trev half joked and Will nodded.

“I’m hoping that distance won’t make any difference if we still have it after twenty two years.” Trev nodded but quickly looked down. It was Will’s turn to notice his brothers attempt at trying to hide how he really felt and it was the reassuring hard hug that Will initiated and Trev returned that made it impossible for Will to maintain a grip on his wavering composure.  Soon Trev’s slipped away as well, his sniffles vibrating Will’s ears, just as much as Will guessed his sounded in Trev’s, making him cling to his brother even more.

As long as he held onto Trev, he could keep both of them there. He wouldn’t have to say goodbye or have to face a morning or day without his brother, but as much as he wanted to stay in that moment forever, he knew that it eventually had to end and somehow he willed his arms to loosen their grip.

 “Why’d you get here so early?” He asked Trev when he finally thought of something to say to break the emotional silence.

Trev shrugged and peeked up at him. “I knew that if I wanted to talk to you alone, I’d have to do it before George got here.” He glanced sideways at the front door and shrugged. “I’m kind of surprised he’s not here already.”

As if on cue, George announced his arrival in the completely opposite fashion as his louder older brother, knocking lightly on the door before entering and carefully closing it. In the same few seconds that it took George to make his subdued entrance, Will watched as Trev once again stacked his protective walls back up and slipped back into the carefully constructed façade. The one that Will knew Trev used as a barrier to deter their younger brother from prying too much.

For four years, he had witnessed their deteriorating relationship and often felt like he was stuck in the middle. Trev always complained about George’s butting in and nagging and George repeatedly voiced his concerns about Trev’s lack of grief when it came to their dad’s death and sister’s disappearance. He often wished that George would lighten up and that Trev would see George’s butting in for what it really was; his way of dealing with the loss of not only their dad, but also his twin sister.

In his opinion, their blindness to see and understand each other was because of their stubbornness and the fact that they were more alike than either of them wanted to admit. He had tried to reason with them, tried to help them see each other’s actions the way he saw them, but somewhere in the years that they had been at ASU together he had decided it was wiser to pick his battles. Opting instead to remain quiet and choosing his words carefully while secretly hoping that their relationship would return to the way it was before they had all lost so much.

“Make sure to call Mom. She’ll worry if you don’t.” George reminded Will later as he and Trev were leaving. He noticed the slight eye roll of Trev’s behind George’s back and gave Trev a look that told him to stop.

“I will. And I’ll text you too.” Will told both of them and moved closer to George, hugging him and hoping that he was making more out of his worry about George’s increasing need to make sure everyone was alright. 

He tried to reassure himself and George by giving him one last pat on the back and focused in on Trev. There wasn’t much to say, since they’d said it before and even if there was it would be a conversation that he knew both of them would want to have in private. So when the two of them hugged Will simply whispered into Trev’s ear, “I’ll call you.”

 “You better.” Trev’s low voice growled in his ear and his arms squeezed Will so hard that he thought his ribs might break.  

He waved from the doorway when both of them did and watched them talk only long enough to say a couple words and hug. The weight of the huge change that they would each experience hit him in that moment as he watched them walk away from him and each other, and he felt a twinge and longing in his heart. Knowing that in the coming years of family get togethers that he would wish for the time that they were together like they had been in college.

He continued to stare at the closed wood door until the sound of feet on the floor prompted him to turn around and see Donovan returning to the kitchen. “Sorry about that.” He said as he joined Donovan.

Donovan waved him off and smiled as he went to the sink to rinse out his mug. “It’s your brothers. And I know Trev wouldn’t want an audience when he said goodbye.” It as a statement that revealed just how well he’d gotten to know Will and his family.

When they met during the first semester of their freshman year, Will didn’t know what to think about the outgoing, funny guy that kept talking to him. He’d grown up in one town, had the same small number of friends his whole life and everyone knew how he was. He could be the guy that was quiet and no one thought anything of it because they knew that it wasn’t him being antisocial, it was him appreciating the company of those he was around.

He could be the guy that let Trev tell the stories and add his own bits when he felt like it, instead of feeling nervous from having to tell the whole thing himself. He had a place, all to himself, and it wasn’t until he got to ASU that he realized how fortunate he had been.

The thought of people coming up and introducing themselves made him sweat. It meant that he’d have to try to respond in some way that didn’t sound stupid or wrong. So when a friendly guy sat down next to him on the first day in English and then started talking, he looked around, hoping that the guy wasn’t talking to him. But he was, and after Will’s less than impressive responses, he figured the guy would find someone else to sit next to.

He didn’t. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning he sat next to Will and little by little it got easier for Will to talk to him. By the end of the semester, Donovan moved into the brownstone with Will and a couple of his cousins, and they’d been best friends ever since.

Best friends who were complete opposites, and even though Will wondered about it when they first met, it was something that he later found comfort in. Just like with Trev, when he and Donovan were around others he could fade more into the background, interjecting things here and there and when they were alone, many of their conversations could last for hours, but they could also know what the other one was thinking with just a look.

What Will saw then, as he watched Donovan dry and put his mug away, was the same thing he saw when George and Trev came by. The dread of what was to come; another goodbye as they both moved on to do what they loved. While Will wanted nothing more than to stay somewhere permanent that inspired him to write, Donovan was a nature photographer whose home would change from month to month and possibly as quickly as week to week. Many places, he would be unreachable since he sometimes went to areas of the world that didn’t have a signal.

It was a subject that Will tried to skirt around in the past, not really wanting to admit how things would be once they graduated and with no time left, Will wished that he could go back and say all the things that he couldn’t.

“How’s your car going to get there?” Donovan’s voice startled Will out of his thoughts.

“It’ll be flown, along with my boxes of stuff. They’ll be a delay though.” It would drive him crazy, not being able to get situated as soon as he arrived, but it was something that couldn’t be helped with moving somewhere that people couldn’t drive to.

“You’re not going to be sleeping on a hard, wood floor are you?” Donovan smirked but Will could see a hint of actual worry in his eyes. “I can give you one of my inflatable mattresses. . .” He hinted but Will shook his head.

“It’s partially furnished so there’s a bed.” He said and added getting a new one to his mental checklist of things that he needed to do after arriving. Even though he was thankful for something to sleep on, the idea of sleeping where others had wasn’t something he wanted to do every night.

A rock felt like it fell into his stomach when the foyer clock chimed, signaling ten o’clock. It was the time that Will planned to leave to go to the airport since he needed to check on everything that the airline was shipping. He knew he should be rushing out the door, but that would make everything final and while he felt excited for what lie ahead, he felt at that moment a yearning to stay in the past, even for just a moment longer.

“Didn’t you say you wanted to leave at ten?” Donovan’s voice provided the little push that Will needed to get moving and he nodded as glanced back up.

“Yeah. The time seems to have snuck up on me.” He meant literally and figuratively and he cursed himself for always ignoring things that he didn’t want to face unit he was forced to. Always missing out on the chance to say or do what he wanted because of it. 

“We’ll talk after you get there. You can tell me all about the beach, the ocean, the pretty girls. . .” Donovan paused and smirked. “I’ll have to come check those out myself.”

Despite the growing ache in his heart, Will couldn’t keep himself from laughing. “First chance you get. I’ll even buy a new bed for the guest room.” Their combined laughter faded until the only sound was the ticking of the foyer clock and Will was once again faced with the prospect of saying goodbye.

Except with his family, he wasn’t much of a hugger, but at that moment it just seemed right. He hoped that his hug told Donovan all that he hadn’t been able to say before and he let himself believe that Donovan’s final squeeze was his way of letting Will know that he understood. It gave him a peace about leaving that he hadn’t felt that morning, a peace that he also saw on Donovan’s face as their hug ended.

It was short lived though when he remembered the time and once again inwardly cursed at how it seemed to be fighting against him that morning. He finally gathered the last of his things, placed the silver key on the kitchen counter and Donovan followed him out to the car.

“Watch out for sharks.” Donovan joked after Will closed the passenger door.

“Watch out for bears. . .and large cats. . . anything poisonous.” The amount of things to choose from overwhelmed him and his hope of saying something witty backfired. But any worry about saying something stupid disappeared when the sound of Donovan’s laughter floated along the warm breeze, making Will chuckle.

“See you soon.” He whispered when he and Donovan gave each other one last hug.

“See you soon.”

Having finally said goodbye, Will rushed over to the driver’s side and wasted no time starting the car. He paused after pulling out of the driveway, waving at Donovan and taking one last look at the place he’d called home, before pulling away and setting his attention on getting to the airport.

He was glad when everything went smoothly with checking in the last of his stuff and tried to keep himself occupied while waiting to board the plane by trying to write. It was no good though. When he envisioned traveling to his new home, repeated images of him typing happily away on his laptop made him believe that he’d get a decent start on his next book. But the actual plane ride proved even less productive and he spent most of his time looking out the window, watching the fluffy white clouds pass by, hoping that by some miracle they’d somehow inspire him to write.

Wanting nothing more than to get to his new home and to start acclimating to his new surroundings, Will made a beeline to the baggage claim and quickly secured a ride in a cab. When he visited the island during Spring Break, he spent several days looking at different properties, some on the main island and others on smaller surrounding ones. But the house that spoke to him from the moment the he’d seen it was one that was on the main island, or the “Big Island” as he’d learned the natives called it, making it possible to take a land cab instead of a water taxi.

The movement of the cab going around a curve that lead to the other side of the island, drew Will’s attention away from water taxis and views of the ocean. From his time there before, he remembered that the house would become visible once the road straightened out and he didn’t want to miss the first opportunity to see it.

Unlike many of the other houses on the island that threatened to blind people with their bright colors, the variations of the creams and browns of his house instantly made Will want to gaze at it and stay. He did like that the blue roof tiles added a punch of color to the otherwise subdued home, and that the blues and yellows of the flowers and bushes around it provided a softened contrast to the stucco and stone, but that was enough color for him. It didn’t make sense to him to have a house that visually competed with the ocean, especially when one of the things high on his wish list had been ocean views.

His heart raced when he caught the first glimpses of the house, much the same that it did when he first saw it. He took pictures to show Donovan and his family and the images helped him remember what it looked like, but sometimes pictures didn’t accurately capture the subject and he started to wonder if that was the case with his. But seeing it again reassured him that all that he saw on his visit before and in the pictures was what really awaited him.

He helped the driver unload his many bags and was grateful when he agreed to carry them into the foyer. It was his intention to unpack all of them that night, but the sound of the waves was like a siren’s song and once he tipped the driver, he couldn’t resist their summons any longer. It was late enough that the sun cast an orange glow on every surface that it touched, reminding Will of the orange sun he saw that morning and it seemed surreal to him that in the same day he had gone from admiring the sun from the hills surrounding ASU to the ocean beaches of Isla Paradiso.

Thinking of ASU, reminded him of the promises to call and text people and he pulled out his phone from his shorts pocket. He exchanged several texts with George and Donovan and then called Trev. After some joking about hearing birds and the ocean in the background, the two of them talked for a couple minutes about the plane ride, Trev’s leaving for Bridgeport the next day, and that he’d call Will when he got there.

He could almost trick himself into thinking that Trev was just a couple streets down, like he was at ASU, until it came time to hang up. He wouldn’t see him the next morning or hear his larger than life entrance. It would be their new norm and while Will already missed him, he was thankful that technology would allow them to keep in touch.

He next called his mom who wanted to hear every detail about his day; seeing Trev and George and reassuring her that they were indeed okay, what he did while he waited at the airport, how the plane ride went and if he sat next to or around any interesting people. . .By the time he hung up, the sun had said its farewell and he took a moment to just stand there, looking out at the black water and listening to the waves lap onto the shore.

He kicked at some of the sand as he walked back towards the house, smiling at how it crept into his sandals and embedded between his toes. It wasn’t so enjoyable though when he reached the front door and had to try to get all the sand off his shoes and feet. He eventually gave up on the shoes and placed them on the portico before stepping into the foyer and looking around at the mostly open downstairs.

His pile of bags sitting in the foyer seemed out of place in the mostly empty space. There was an old, stripped couch that screamed outdated nautical, a TV stand that Will wondered about its ability to hold even the smallest TV, and a lamp with a yellowed shade on a dusty side table in what was the family room area. Besides a decent looking table and chairs in the kitchen and some slightly faded window hangings, there wasn’t anything else for the person that moved in.

But that was why he bought it; so he could make it his own and he pulled out his notebook from his satchel to start making a to-do list. To others it would’ve seemed overwhelming, but it excited him. Knowing the sense of satisfaction he would get from crossing every item off of his list made him that much more determined to get started, and once he’d written down every item he could think of, he set to work on moving his bags.

He placed each one in the appropriate room, most of them going into his bedroom just off the kitchen, and realized very quickly that until he purchased the furniture he needed, he couldn’t put most of what was in them away. Exhaustion hit him once he placed all the items that he could, and he dug around in one clothes bag until he found the shorts he slept in. He should’ve fallen asleep the second his head hit the pillow, but the unfamiliar sound of the waves and the feeling of being in a strange bed made it hard for him to find sleep.

He lay awake, wondering what Trev was doing, hoping that he was staying out of trouble and if Donovan noticed how empty the ASU house was, like he did with his. But Donovan still had the comfort of his own bed and familiar sights and smells of Appleville. Will took a deep breath and the smell of salt filled his nose.

The briny smell of salt filled the air, reminding the inhabitants of Isla Paradiso that the ocean was never far away and of the assured promise of water fun tomorrow.

“Horrible.” He muttered to himself and rolled over. He was too tired to even attempt another go at it and he finally closed his eyes. It wasn’t long before he felt himself slipping into dreamland but not before he wondered how long it would take for him to think of the sights and smells that surrounded him as home.